Battle of Camden, August 16, 1780 | And Then There Were Thirteen (1976) | ETV Classics

And Then There Were Thirteen with Dr. Henry Lumpkin was an instructional series debuted by SCETV in the mid-1970s. The 20-episode series featured lectures by Dr. Henry Lumpkin of the University of South Carolina Department of History filmed on actual battle sites and campaign areas of the American Revolution in South Carolina. 

The great port city of Charleston was now in British hands, and almost the entire American army of the South had been captured with the city, along with its commander, Benjamin Lincoln. The British pushed up along the rivers, the Savannah, the Santee, the PeeDee, moving up into backcountry South Carolina and established fortified outposts, and firmly held enclaves throughout the state as they marched. The scene was being set for the conquest of the Carolinas. A new American army marched down from the North commanded by General Horatio Gates, the hero of Saratoga. This army was doomed also to defeat and rout at Camden. 

In his enthralling manner, Professor Lumpkin takes us to Camden where we stand on a dirt road where Lord Cornwallis and Horatio Gates marched and met on Deep River in Randolph County, North Carolina to fight the battle of Camden in 1780. Johann de Kalb and Horatio Gates met before the battle, with all ceremonies including a thirteen gun salute. 

Professor Lumpkin presents the battle as it played out, noting the landscape of pine woods and swamps and behind the scenes dramas that undercut the patriot forces at every turn. He described what he called a strange comedy of errors and impulsive decisions leading to bad outcomes. For want of horses, de Kalb had to leave behind ten of his eighteen field guns, a grim deficiency in the battle ahead.  In the semi wilderness, Major Seymour of the Delaware line wrote in his journal “Sometimes we drew half a pound of beef per man and that so miserably poor that a mortal could make any use of it, living on green apples and peaches which rendered our situation truly miserable, and surrounded on all sides by our enemies."

While the Americans had a few well-seasoned regiments, most of their forces were green recruits, not in the best of health. Watch and learn about how Lord Francis Rawdon, the British commander with a strong reconnaissance force retired before the Americans without fighting and took up a position on the other side of Little Lynches Creek. Horatio Gates, despite Johann de Kalb’s advice, to outflank Lord Rawdon by a forced night march, Gates instead marched in on another road in broad daylight. Learn more about the sabres drawn battles, skirmishes, retreats, Horatio Gates escape to Charlotte, the fall of the heroic Baron de Kalb, and the valor of the Maryland and Delaware regiments relayed as only Professor Lumpkin can!

Side Notes

• Charles Cornwallis - August 16, 1780, more than 2000 British and Loyalist troops under Lt. General Lord Cornwallis met and defeated over 4,000 American troops commanded by the “Hero of Saratoga,” General Horatio Gates. The Battle of Camden was the worst Patriot defeat of the American Revolution.
• General Horatio Gates - The rout was a personally humiliating defeat for Gates, the American general best known for commanding the Patriot forces at the British defeat at Saratoga three years previously. His army had possessed a great numerical superiority over the British force, having twice the personnel, but his command of them was seen as disorganized and chaotic. Following the battle, he was regarded with disdain by his colleagues and he never held a field command again. His political connections, however, helped him avoid any military inquiry into the debacle or court martial.
• Johann de Kalb - Baron de Kalb (1721 – 1780) was a Franconian-born French military officer who served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He was mortally wounded while fighting against the British Army during the Battle of Camden.
• Captain Francis Lord Rawdon - Lord Rawdon, an Irish-born officer in the British army, saw extensive service in the northern and southern theaters of the Revolutionary War and took part in almost every major battle.
• Count Casmir Pulaski - Discover the Short Life and Long Legacy of Casimir Pulaski, a Polish Cavalry Officer Who Became an American Revolutionary Hero
• Tuffin, Charles-Armand, le Marquis de La Rouerie. 1750-1793 Armand decided to go to America in 1776 in an attempt to revive his military career. He joined the American army in 1776 and was given the rank of colonel. George Washington authorized Armand to raise a legion of volunteers. He was not having much luck recruiting them himself, so, he decided to buy a legion of troops that had already been raised by a Swiss major. The group of men that he purchased would eventually become known as Armand's Legion. In 1780, Armand's Legion was sent south where it absorbed the remnants of troops belonging to Count Casimir Pulaski, the American cavalry commander who had been killed at Savannah in 1779. The Legion participated in the disastrous Battle of Camden and suffered heavy losses. Shortly after Camden, Armand temporarily returned to France in an attempt to procure money and supplies to reconstitute his Legion.
• Richard Caswell (1729-1789) was one of the first delegates chosen to represent North Carolina at the first Continental Congress (1774) as well as the first and fifth governor of the Tar Heel State. Caswell made a tremendous contribution to the United States in its beginning. According to the late Dr. Keats Sparrow, retired Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University, “He can be called the ‘father’ of North Carolina with little exaggeration.”
• Otho Holland Williams (March 1, 1749 – July 15, 1794) was a Continental Army officer from Maryland in the American Revolutionary War. He participated in many battles throughout the war in the New York, New Jersey and Southern theaters, eventually ending his career as a brigadier general.
• John Gunby (1745 – 1807) was an American planter and soldier from Somerset County, Maryland, who is considered by many to be "one of the most gallant officers of the Maryland Line under Gen. Smallwood". He entered service volunteering as a minuteman in 1775 and fought for the American cause until the end earning praise as probably the most brilliant soldier whom Maryland contributed to the War of Independence. Gunby was also the grandfather of Senator Ephraim King Wilson II.
• Banastre Tarleton (1754 – 1833) was a British military officer and politician. He is best known as the lieutenant colonel leading the British Legion at the end of the American Revolutionary War. He later served in Portugal and held commands in Ireland and England.
• Hugh Stephenson (1735 - 1776) was a Colonel in the American Revolution,
• William Smallwood (1732 – 1792) was an American planter, soldier and politician from Charles County, Maryland. He served in the American Revolutionary War, rising to the rank of major general. He was serving as the fourth Governor of Maryland when the state adopted the United States Constitution.
• Thomas Sumter (August 14, 1734 – June 1, 1832) was an American military officer, planter, and politician who served in the Continental Army as a brigadier-general during the Revolutionary War. After the war, Sumter was elected to the House of Representatives and to the Senate, where he served from 1801 to 1810, when he retired. Sumter was nicknamed the "Fighting Gamecock" for his military tactics during the Revolutionary War.
• Maryland Brigade. Maryland Regiments in the Continental Army.
• Mordecai Gist (1743–1792) was a member of a prominent Maryland family who became a brigadier general in command of the Maryland Line in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
• Charles Porterfield (1750 - 1780) On 16 Aug 1780, Colonel and Quartermaster General Charles Porterfield died of wounds received at the Battle of Camden. Charles Porterfield was engaged to Elizabeth Marshall, daughter of future Supreme Court Justice Marshall. He was killed in battle before they could marry
• Charles Stedman - The American Revolution as Told in Britain (1794). Stedman, Charles (1753-1812). The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War. London: printed for the Author, sold by J. Murray, J. Debrett and J. Kerby, 1794.
• General John Howard, 15th Earl of Suffolk, 8th Earl of Berkshire FRS (1739 – 1820) was a British Army officer and peer from the Howard family. In 1783, he succeeded a distant cousin as Earl of Suffolk and Earl of Berkshire.
• Masonic Order - Freemasonry. Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is considered the oldest existing secular fraternal organization, with documents and traditions dating back to the 14th century.
• Robert Henry Kirkwood (1756 – 1791) was a United States officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War. He died in 1791 during the battle of St. Clair's Defeat. In the 16 August 1780 Battle of Camden, Kirkwood's troops won praise from General Nathanael Greene, and were called "The Blue Hen's Chickens" after that. Due to the high number of soldiers killed, wounded, or captured, this battle reduced the Delaware regiment from eight companies to two. Kirkwood took command of one company, which was designated as a light infantry unit.
• Edward Stevens (1745 - 1820) was an officer in the American Revolutionary War and later a state legislator for Virginia, serving in the Virginia Senate. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1794.
• William Seymour, a Sergeant-Major of the Delaware Regiment, soldier and diarist. Seymour (1734-1821), William Seymour was in 1775, Lieutenant in 5th Conn. Regt. Served in New York Campaign. He had command of guard over Burgoyne. The family possess saddle and pistol presented to him by the General, in recognition of courteous treatment. His wife Lydia (Lydia) was active as nurse and the house was protected officially by both armies " (D. A. R. Lineage Book, pp. 39-68).
• James Webster (1743?–1781). British officer. Webster became a lieutenant in the Thirty-third Foot (West Riding) on 10 May 1760 and was promoted to captain in 1763, to major in 1771, and to lieutenant colonel on 9 April 1774. Cornwallis commanded the Third-third from March 1766 until he was promoted to major general in 1775, when Webster took over command as lieutenant colonel, continuing to serve under Cornwallis in the New York and New Jersey campaigns. - Sailing south on 26 December 1779 with Clinton's Charleston expedition, Webster commanded a task force of fourteen hundred men that operated against Lincoln's line of communications from Charleston. Commanding a brigade composed of his own regiment, three light infantry companies, and the Twenty-third Fusiliers, he distinguished himself at Camden, where he was slightly wounded.